BACHELOR THESIS DELTA MANAGEMENT Development of a Community Flood Resilience Assessment Tool
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BACHELOR THESIS DELTA MANAGEMENT Development of a Community Flood Resilience Assessment Tool IZHAR VAN EENENNAAM June 2017 Bachelor Thesis Delta Management Development of a Community Flood Resilience Assessment Tool Izhar van Eenennaam 05 June 2017 In-company mentor: J.M. Buijs HZ University of Applied Sciences Abstract This bachelor thesis describes the graduation period of the Delta Management course. The study was conducted within the Resilient Deltas research group of the HZ University of Applied Sciences, partner of the FRAMES-project. A cooperative project between the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and Denmark to address the shared territorial challenge of on-going climate change. The municipality of Reimerswaal is indicated as pilot area for the FRAMES-project. In search for a suitable pilot location for the toolkit, Yerseke is selected, because this community experienced a pluvial flood in 2016. The aim of the research is to investigate how the development and application of an assessment tool can increase community resilience, participation in flood risk management and give insight to decision makers to identify differences between communities and include this knowledge in future policy and development. While taking into account the shift towards holistic, multifaceted flood risk management, demand for better understanding of a resilience approach, and include awareness raising, public risk perception and indigenous knowledge. The concept of resilience is defined as the ongoing process in which a set of adaptive capacities is linked to a positive path of function and adaptation before, during, and after a disturbance/disaster. Community resilience adds complexity to this definition, as it is more than the ability of an individual to cope with disaster. Community resilience includes the interaction between members which create a collective unit, the term captures the dynamic nature of communities as ‘systems’ and emphasize of their capacity to adapt to the changing environment around them. The building blocks of Community Resilience is visualised in a dynamic framework as a set of five networked components, including indicators to explain the characteristics of the component. The dynamic framework of community resilience is used as theoretical foundation. Review of existing community resilience assessment tools and results of interviews with experts of the municipality of Reimerswaal add the next layer of preconditions for the design of the toolkit. Main design principles: - use an actual casuistry for the toolkit: pluvial flooding. - In case of low response data should still be representative for the whole community: conduct the toolkit with ‘key figures’ - Include broad view of the concept of community resilience (as described in the dynamic framework): include risk casuistry questions and general perception questions - Keep time investment for cooperation to a minimum: semi-structured interview style with 12 main questions, indicators from the dynamic framework are used as keywords in order to ask additional questions. Pluvial Flooding In process of applying the toolkit as a pilot within the municipality of Reimerswaal, two communities were assigned as test location. The community of Yerseke, as this village experienced an event as described within the casuistry. The community of Rilland as second location after some geographic and socio-economic differences were seen. The community characteristics helped to explain certain results of the pilot. Generally the layout and casuistry design were well understood by all respondents. In line with the characteristics of the community, the response from Yerseke was low, as this village has a general focus on their own community. Based on the key figure’s position in the community, respondents identified ‘the community’ differently. Within the spatial environment differences were recorded between questions on pluvial flood and flooding caused by dike failure. Considering the general perception of the public space, this was identified as being mainly functional towards traffic. In the question on disruption of the community, again differences became clear between the two risk questions. Respondents stated pluvial flood only caused material damage, whereas flood caused by dike failure would also cause complete disruption of economic activities and daily life. Especially respondents of Rilland reported it is difficult to initiate economic activities. All respondents stated inhabitants would help residents during disruptive events as described in the casuistry, if the possibility presented itself. General result of both communities is that people know each other. However, (in)formal networks and organisations, the respondent of Yerseke stated this was not strongly developed in Yerske, only if issues presented themselves people unite. In Rilland networks and organisations exist, but are segregated from each other. Respondents from Rillandand Yerseke state the municipality is a cooperative partner in initiatives from the community. Considering governance; all respondents state that there is a general vagueness considering the responsibilities during (pluvial) flood events. This results in the fact inhabitants from both communities expect the local government to take responsibility. Table of Content 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Problem Statement ...................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Questions ................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Reading Guide ......................................................................................................................... 3 2 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................................ 4 2.1 Resilience, what is it? .................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Community + Resilience ................................................................................................................ 4 3 Methodology ........................................................................................................................................ 6 3.1 Research Design ............................................................................................................................ 6 3.2 Data Collection .............................................................................................................................. 6 3.2.1 Literature Research ................................................................................................................ 6 3.2.2 Interviews ............................................................................................................................... 6 3.2.3 Consultation & Results Reflection .......................................................................................... 7 3.3 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 7 4 Results & Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 9 4.1 The building blocks of Community Resilience ............................................................................... 9 4.1.2 Community Resilience: Components & Indicators ................................................................ 9 4.1.2 Sumarry ................................................................................................................................ 15 4.2 Design of a Community Resilience Assessment tool ................................................................... 16 4.2.1 Existing tools ......................................................................................................................... 16 4.2.2 Experience Municipality of Reimerswaal ............................................................................. 18 4.2.3 Sumarry & Tool Design ......................................................................................................... 19 4.3 Pilot Municipality Reimerswaal: Process design ......................................................................... 22 4.3.1 Location for pilot .................................................................................................................. 22 4.3.2 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 30 4.4 Results Pilot Toolkit in Reimerswaal............................................................................................ 31 4.4.1 General ................................................................................................................................. 31 4.4.2 Introductionary question ..................................................................................................... 32 4.4.3 Physical Environment ........................................................................................................... 32 4.4.4 Economic Development ....................................................................................................... 32 4.4.5 Social Capital .......................................................................................................................